$5 million bounty offered by US for Joseph Kony

$5 million bounty: The bounties are being offered by the State Department under a provision in the War Crimes Rewards Program authored by Secretary of State John Kerry when he was a senator and signed into law by President Barack Obama in January.

Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) leader Major General Joseph Kony, is seen in an exclusive image at peace negotiations in Ri-Kwangba, southern Sudan, in 2008. The US State Department said on Wednesday it will offer a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest, transfer or conviction fugitive warlord Joseph Kony and some of his top aides.

The bounties are being offered by the State Department under a provision in the War Crimes Rewards Program authored by Secretary of State John Kerry when he was a senator and signed into law by President Barack Obama in January. That provision expanded the scope of the program that had previously allowed for rewards to be offered for war crimes suspects wanted only by international criminal tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.

Kony is accused of ordering widespread atrocities during a brutal campaign for power that originated in Uganda in the 1980s and is wanted by the International Criminal Court. He is now believed to be hiding in the Central African Republic where an international manhunt for him led by African troops has been suspended due to lack of cooperation from that country's new leaders, who overthrew the government last month.